History Repeats Itself

(This is Adam)

I wrote the first part of this a long time ago, before I was a parent. I thought it would be a fitting thing to post today, in honor of my Dad. Happy Father's Day.

When RoboCop came out, I was only 3 or 4. I watched the cartoon and had a bunch of the figures and vehicles. First problem was that I was always losing RoboCop's helmet. I would go crying to my parents whenever I couldn't find it and we would tear the house apart until it was located. RoboCop figures just do not look cool without a helmet:

Looks like Patrick Stewart

My parents thought it was an evil marketing scheme because they had to buy at least one replacement due to lost helmets. After the first one or two, they started super-gluing the helmet to the head right out of the packaging. Smart parents.

Then one day, I took RoboCop with me to the playground and somehow, I left him there. Not sure how I managed to just up and forget I had brought my favorite toy with me. It wasn't as though I lost him. I remembered where I had left him, but when it was time to go I had forgot that I had brought him with me and left without him. I realized it around bedtime and went crying to my parents. My dad changed out of his pajamas, put socks and shoes on my feet and took me out there in the dark. We looked and looked to no avail.


I'm sure that my dad already knew as we were on our way that some lucky kid got a free RoboCop complete with a glued-on-helmet upgrade. The next day he took me to the toy store to get yet another RoboCop action figure.

A few months back, we took Jack to the toy aisle to pick out a reward for success with a certain potty-training milestone. After much deliberation, he picked out a Thomas train set, complete with Thomas. Thus began a collection and an obsession, which Natalie and I facilitate.

Well, the very next day we were shopping at Kohl's and had allowed Jack to bring Thomas in with him. When we were on our way to the car, we realized he was missing. I headed back in to retrace our steps, knowing that Thomas was long gone. He wasn't in the cart we had been using, he wasn't anywhere on the floor close to the checkout, and he wasn't in the bathroom that we had visited, in compliance with the previously-mentioned potty training. I started to get this feeling in my stomach, which I'm sure many dads have felt, and which I surely caused in my own Dad on occasions like the missing RoboCop incident.

Natalie texted me that they had spent some time looking at KitchenAid stand mixers. I checked there and found Thomas sitting upright on the floor, smiling brightly up at me.

Needless to say, we try to make sure the toy stays in the car these days. I caught quite a few scandalized looks from ladies in line at Kohl's whilst scanning the ground beneath their feet like some crazed streetwalker. This experience taught me what a great example I have in my Dad. That he could sympathize with me and take me to search a playground across town past my bedtime either speaks to how incredibly obnoxious and persistent of a child I was or to my Dad's willingness to sacrifice for my happiness. After 24 or so years of further observation, I know that it is the latter. The lengths my Dad has gone to in order to provide for, spend time with, pay for, etc. are quickly becoming family legend.

Every year at Christmas dinner, at the Jones house, we go around the table and say "something nice" about the person next to us. Whenever the person talking about Dad is up, the crying starts. It's not a pretty sight, but it never fails that whoever it is talks about how much he sacrifices for us.

I have learned so much about how to be a good person, parent and friend from my Dad, and will always strive to live up to his example.

Thanks, Dad.

One month (plus two weeks)

Wow, Ian is already six weeks old! But let's pretend he's not. Let's pretend I was on the ball and posted this right at his one-month-iversay. Before I know it we'll be at the two month mark, so I knew I had to get this done today before family starts rolling in for the blessing this weekend.

Ian is so dang adorable, but that is stating the obvious, huh? His cute personality is already starting to show up. He LOVES attention. Some evenings he'll be fed, diaper changed, warm, etc. but still be fussing and as soon as we pick him up and talk to him face to face he's totally happy and smiley.

He is a pretty easy going boy in the mornings and afternoon. But by evening a lot of the time he's a bit fussier and he always likes to get whiny right as we're sitting down for dinner. He's getting very good as sleeping for longer stretches at night time. I've had two or three nights where he'll go 5-6 hours straight. I'm also trying to be better this time around at putting him down drowsy and letting him get himself to sleep. We'll see if it works how it's supposed to.

Ian is getting very good at holding his head up and almost never rests his head against your chest when he's awake anymore. We may need to look into a bumbo or something because this guy already loves to sit up and see what's going on.

Big Bro, Jack, is great at caring for Ian when he's fussy. (He's also pretty good at being the cause for his crying :) Sometimes he just loves him a little too hard.) When Ian is crying he'll ask, "What's the matter, Ian?" Then he'll try to find a binky or toy to make Ian happy.

We're adjusting to two kids pretty well. It's still fun to refer to "the boys" or "the kids." I'm sure that novelty will wear out eventually. But for now it still makes me smile a little every time.

Now, on to the many many pictures. I won't even apologize because I know there are plenty of people who have been wanting a post like this. I tried to pick some that haven't been on facebook, instagram, and google plus, but I had to repeat a few because of shear cuteness. I just love this first picture because you can really see his pretty, dark blue eyes in it. 

 So smiley!

 Love all the goofy faces he makes.

 Getting so good at holding up that head

 Perfect, right?

 I attempted the take-a-picture-of-the-baby-with-the-same-stuffed-animal-every-month thing, but couldn't figure out a good way to pose them. As you can see, Ian wasn't very thrilled with it either.

 Right after this cute 'brothers' picture was taken Jack got clobbered with spit-up. He was very nice about it, though.

 First bath at home

 When Grandma came to stay for the week.

 Hanging out in his bassinet.

 I just love a cute, clean, naked baby wrapped in an over-sized towel!

 Me and my boys. Love them.

 Snugglin' bros

 Bath time bros

 Ian's first bottle from Daddy.

And a collage of a few of his best smiles.

Like I said, the blessing is on Sunday. So I'll try to get some pictures posted from that next week... or the week after :)

Ian Everett Jones

Our handsome little dude is here. He is three weeks old tomorrow and we are just loving him to pieces. He's got a very chill, laid back temperament and other than the fact that he spits up an entire meal about once a day, he's a super easy baby. Thank goodness for a well-functioning washer and dryer. Big Brother Jack is having a great time and has fallen into the older sibling role very well. He loves to hold him, kiss him, get him his binky, and play pretend with him. Ian gets to be all kinds of fun sidekicks when Jack is playing pretend. He's a great Robin to Jack's Batman and he also makes a pretty great Potato Head to Jack's Buzz Lightyear.

Well, I guess I'll give a little synopsis of Ian's birth for those that are interested:

Ian was born April 23, 2013 at 9:33 pm at Dixie Regional Hospital in St. George, Utah. He was 8 lbs and 20.5 inches long. I was induced that afternoon for some precautionary non-emergency medical reasons. I had been having headaches along with a bit of a spike in my protein counts in the last month of the pregnancy. So when I went in to see my doctor a day before my due date and told him that I had had a headache for almost 24 hours he suggested we go ahead and induce to make sure it didn't progress into something more serious. He told me that the hospital would call around 6 or 7 to let us know we could come in. They ended up calling around 3:30. So Adam came home from work early and we got all our stuff gathered up. We got to the hospital around 4:30 and they started the pitocin at 5:30. Things moved along pretty quickly. I got my epidural at 8:00. I still wasn't in a lot of pain when they did the epidural, so I was going to decline and stick it out longer. I sure am glad I didn't though. Things really moved fast and by 9:00 I was feeling a ton of pressure from Ian's head moving down. I called the nurse and she said it was go-time. They got our doctor in there and I only ended up pushing for 10 minutes.

I just can't say enough good things about my experience this time around. Things were so much different than they were with Jack. The moment they put Ian up on my chest I was just overcome by the most powerful and instant sense of love I've ever felt before. With Jack, my first emotion was fear and worry. So I didn't have the special bonding moment until later when I got to hold him in the NICU. With Ian I got to do everything I missed out on with Jack. We did skin to skin time, I got to nurse him right away, I got to have him in my room with me. It was just perfect.

Here are some pictures of the cute little guy:

 

 Jack was SO excited to hold him and asked permission to "touch his nose."

 Happy Big Bro.

 Our new family of four :)

 And we're home

 Mel and Sydney came to visit the weekend after Ian was born. Jack loved hanging out with his oldest cousin, Syd.

That's all the photos I've got from our camera, but there are tons more on our phones. I'll try to get an update post with pics from the last three weeks up soon. But for now I'm calling this one post a huge success for me since I've not been very into the blogging stuff lately.

Oh Hey!

Well, hey there. It's been a while. Please excuse my absence. I guess life got a little crazy over the passed couple months. Between a busy holiday rush with etsy, church callings, visitors, being out of town, and morning sickness, there just hasn't seemed like much time for blogging. (Yeah, morning sickness. For anyone who didn't know we've got a baby coming in April. We find out in two weeks what we're having.)

Anyway, we haven't been up to a whole lot lately. But I did have a few things worth sharing- mostly in the "funny things Jack does and says" realm of things. First, a couple videos.

He does lots of singing all day long. Sometimes song we all know and love and sometimes made up ones like the second one there. 

Oh and if you're wondering, he's sporting the diaper-only look because we're doing the potty training thing.


We went bowling a couple weeks ago. I think by the end Jack was more into the neon lights they had turned out. But despite his "whatever" attitude about it all, he still managed to beat the two adults he was playing (Adam and Me) That says more about mine and Adam's limited skills than anything else.

Then, while waiting for a print job to finish up one day, Jack and I went to the fun duck pond. He loved all the attention he got from them.

Last week as Jack was pretending to be Aroo, the puppy, Adam decided to give him a puppy drink. And Jack was, of course, all for it. He gets really into pretend play. 

Jack just keeps getting funnier and funnier. He cracks us up with the things he understands and remembers. He's been all about figuring out this thing we call "work." He loves to mimic Adam and I with our work.

One day he climbed up into the computer chair, put one hand on the mouse and said "I'm busy. Etsy so fun."

Then one afternoon when Adam was home for lunch he came up to me and said. "I'm Daddy. I should go back to work. Give me a kiss." Then he proceeded to get on his tricycle and ride toward the door yammering about how he was going to work and going to a restaurant.

He's been a sweet little mama's boy lately too. He'll tell me things like, "You the best mom ever." or "My mom so fun." or "Momma, we the best friends ever!" Gotta love that.

Last weekend, Christie and Richard came to visit. I said, "Jack, guess who's coming to visit." After guessing the usual suspects like Grandma and Carson, he jumped to the next logical conclusion. He said, "Mint Rommey come to my house?"

Then just last night as we watched a Christmas movie (I know, it's too early. But we just can't help it) Adam said, "Look, it's a Jack-in-the-box." And without missing a beat Jack said, "It's a Me-in-the-box!"

And for those who didn't see his knock knock joke on facebook, he told me a real knee-slapper:
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Milk"
"Milk who?"
"Mine"

I think that's about it for now. I'll try to get on here a bit more frequently especially with holidays and gender reveal coming up. But I'm not promising anything... :)